数字化转型增进了企业社会责任履行吗?

Has Digital Transformation Promoted the Fulfillment of Corporate Social Responsibility?

在数字经济时代,数字化转型是企业实现高质量发展的必由之路。企业数字化转型对企业发展和社会进步都具有深远影响,然而现有文献关于企业数字化转型效应的经验分析大多集中于经济效益领域,对其社会溢出效应的研究较为匮乏。数字化转型与社会责任履行两者统一于企业实现可持续发展的战略框架之下,因而本文从社会责任履行的角度探讨企业数字化转型的社会溢出效应。数字化转型可以增强企业履行社会责任的意愿和能力,并通过完善管理机制、改进生产方式、改善外部关系等路径增进企业的社会责任履行;数字化转型的积极效应越大,企业数字化转型越积极,数字化转型对企业社会责任履行的增进作用也越大,因而该增进效应表现出行业异质性和企业异质性。以2011—2020年沪深两市A股上市公司为样本,利用Python爬虫技术和文本数据挖掘方法刻画样本企业的数字化转型,进而检验数字化转型对企业社会责任履行的影响及其路径和异质性,分析结果表明:(1)数字化转型显著增进了样本企业的社会责任履行,并存在多条影响路径,包括“数字化转型→财务稳定性提高→社会责任履行增进”“数字化转型→内部控制质量提高→社会责任履行增进”“数字化转型→创新投入(产出)增加→社会责任履行增进”“数字化转型→信息披露质量提高→社会责任履行增进”等。(2)数字化转型对高技术行业、竞争性行业和制造业企业社会责任履行的增进作用更为显著,企业融资约束的降低和企业价值的提高均会强化数字化转型对企业社会责任履行的增进作用。与现有研究相比,本文从企业基于发展战略的行为选择角度进一步深入分析了数字化转型影响企业社会责任履行的理论机制,同时也拓展了其影响路径和异质性的研究视角,有助于企业在数字化转型过程中兼顾经济效益与社会效益,并采取差异化策略来充分释放数字化转型的社会溢出红利。本文研究表明,数字化转型不仅能提升企业的经济绩效,也能增进企业的非经济绩效,具有显著的社会溢出效应。因此,企业在实现高质量发展的战略转变中,应该将数字化战略与社会责任战略相契合,并不断完善信息披露机制以更充分地发挥数字化转型的社会溢出效应,促进数字化转型与社会责任履行之间的协同共进。

In the era of the digital economy,digital transformation is an inevitable path for enterprises to achieve high-quality development.The digital transformation of enterprises has a profound impact on enterprise development and social progress.However,the empirical analysis of the effect of digital transformation on enterprises in the existing literature mostly focuses on the field of economic benefits,and the research on its social spillover effect is relatively scarce.Digital transformation and social responsibility fulfillment are unified under the strategic framework of enterprises to achieve sustainable development.Therefore,this paper discusses the social spillover effects of digital transformation of enterprises from the perspective of social responsibility performance.Digital transformation can enhance the willingness and ability of enterprises to fulfill their social responsibilities,and enhance the fulfillment of corporate social responsibilities by improving management mechanisms,improving production methods,and improving external relations;the greater the positive effect of digital transformation,the more active the digital transformation of enterprises,and the greater the effect of digital transformation on the fulfillment of corporate social responsibility.Therefore,the enhancement effect shows industry heterogeneity and enterprise heterogeneity.Taking A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges from 2011 to 2020 as a sample,using Python crawler technology and text data mining methods to characterize the digital transformation of the sample companies,and the impact of digital transformation on corporate social responsibility performance and its path and heterogeneity is tested.The analysis results show that:(1)digital transformation has significantly improved the social responsibility performance of the sample companies,and there are multiple impact paths,including“digital transformation→financial stability improvement→social responsibility performance improvement”“digital transformation→internal control quality improvement→social responsibility performance enhancement”“digital transformation→innovation input(output)increase→social responsibility performance enhancement”“digital transformation→information disclosure quality improvement→social responsibility performance enhancement”,etc.(2)Digital transformation has a more significant role in enhancing the fulfillment of corporate social responsibility in high-tech industries,competitive industries and manufacturing industries.The reduction of corporate financing constraints and the improvement of corporate value will strengthen the role of digital transformation in the fulfillment of corporate social responsibility.Compared with existing research,this paper further analyzes the theoretical mechanism of digital transformation affecting corporate social responsibility performance based on the perspective of enterprise development strategy,and also expands the research perspective of its impact path and heterogeneity,which helps enterprises to take into account economic and social benefits in the process of digital transformation,and adopt differentiated strategies to fully release the social spillover dividends of digital transformation.The research in this paper shows that digital transformation can not only improve the economic performance of enterprises,but also improve the non-economic performance of enterprises,with significant social spillover effects.Therefore,in the strategic transformation of achieving high-quality development,enterprises should align the digital strategy with the social responsibility strategy,and continuously improve the information disclosure mechanism to give full play to the social spillover effect of digital transformation and promote the synergy between digital transformation and social responsibility fulfillment.